STATE PANEL ASKED TO RULE ON MEETING

When board of education members met June 30 at 5:30 p.m., they were determined to spend some of their end-of-the-budget-year surplus before midnight, when the money would revert to the town.

But they had a problem: There weren't enough members present for a quorum, so no vote could be taken.

Their solution? The board recessed until about 10:30 p.m., when member Wayne Hypolite was reached on the telephone in Trinidad to establish a quorum. With Hypolite voting via the telephone, the board decided to spend $105,000 on various school items.

But was the meeting legal? Both Town Attorney Marc Needelman and the board's own attorney have been asked to rule. And they can't agree.

Now, the state Freedom of Information Commission has been asked to decide if the meeting, and the action taken to spend the money, was legal.

In a letter sent this week to the Freedom of Information Commission, school board member Barbara Thornton asked for a formal review of the process and action taken by the board. A hearing on the matter has yet to be scheduled.

Thornton could not be reached for comment Thursday.

"It would have been best if both attorneys had agreed," Mayor Faith McMahon said Thursday. "The FOI commission will decide."

McMahon said that in Needelman's opinion, the meeting was illegal because it did not meet the standards of open meeting laws. The board, he found, did not have a quorum at the 5:30 p.m. time the meeting was advertised.

The five-hour gap between the time the meeting was advertised and the time the vote was taken did not qualify as a legal "recess," Needelman found. A recess is considered a brief interruption, he said.

It's Needelman's opinion, McMahon said, that "any action the board took was not valid." Needelman declined to comment on his opinion, which he submitted in writing to McMahon.

The board's attorney, Thomas Mooney, could not be reached for comment. But McMahon said Mooney told the board its meeting was legal.

The June 30 meeting had been scheduled 24 hours earlier. When the meeting time came, only three of the board's seven members were present. Four are needed for a quorum.

Board Chairwoman Rochelle Jones left the board meeting to find Thornton, who was attending another function. Thornton declined to leave the function.

As time slipped away, Hypolite, who had left that morning to attend to family business in Trinidad, was tracked down and reached by telephone. With Hypolite on the speaker-phone, the board voted to spend the $105,000 surplus from about 20 separate accounts on items such as textbooks, computers and other supplies.

Hypolite and Jones, both Democrats, and Republicans Kathleen Lescoe and Terry Gilbert voted for the spending.